not much happening here, lets change that...

[Crusader]

Hey guys, since there aren't much posts, I hope somebody would read this and reply...

I'm stuck!!! ;)

This goes together with the SISS thread that should be in WIP... writing a scifi short story AND doing CG illustratrations in trueSpace to accompany it but I'm stuck just before the grand finale, getting the troops into the action [literally]

Here is what I have so far -> SISS (http://crusader.esmartdesign.com/central/siss-p1.htm)

Check out the story part...

Now I was thinking of having a showdown with the Mensoid ground forces down in the cave tunnels below as they reach the shuttle but can't get a good angle to get into it...

...any suggestions?

[p.s. Cargile]

I read the prologue and scanned the first chapter. It reads like a text book: this happened then this happened then this happened. This leads me to believe that you are young and inexperienced at writing. You may have a good story to tell, but you haven't developed the skill in how to tell that story. And that makes it hard to be interested.
I think that is the general reason why forum topics of this nature go unused. Its difficult for an unexperienced writer to attract attention. While serious writers who are striving to get published don't want to give out freebees of their work.

To make Lee's universe more interesting, we need to get into Lee's head. We need to see it through his eyes. We need to read what he feels. We need to know what he thinks. We need to know how the plot effects him.
And most of all, make us question what's going on. Drop clues and hints and make us wnat to turn the page to find the answers. How you do that is using your own experiences in life and adapting them to fit the scenes on your story. Write what you know and readers pick up on that. It gives a story an extra dimension, and makes it more believable and real.

And never, never, ask us how to write your story, or what to include in it. It's your intellectual property. Our suggestions and ideas diminsh that attribute of it. Unless we are editors and you want to make money, you might consider making compromises to match a market. But as forum folk go, as soon as you use someone else's idea, it becomes both of yours. If you are ok with that , so be it.

This is an honest critique and I hope you can deal with it and learrn from it. And I'm just a 36 year old guy working on finishing something that could be published. When I get to the submission stage I expect to be rejected. That's the process.

[dfalconet]

Paul,
Thank you for that response in answer to Crusader. Not only did the critique address his personal concerns, but the rest of us can learn a lot from it too as we also have the same problems...........Darlene

[p.s. Cargile]

Just checked Crusader's biography. . .a little younger than me.
I think the story has potential. I would say write the way you know how to write, then refine it afterwards. I don't follow my own advice, and can spend hours refining a few pages worth of material.

My favorite authors are Frank Herbert, Stephen King, Matthew Stover (who writes Star Wars novels.), and Ayn Rand I kike them not just for the stories they tell, but more importantly the way they write and bring me into the worlds they create. Each of them have a different way of writing and have influenced the way I write. I don't mean that I ask myself how they would write a passage, but I understand how their personal experiences flavor their stories and I try to do the same.
On another note, I enjoy Arthir C. Clark's stories, but find his writing boring. Its as if he were looking through a window of a box that held his imagination and reported what he saw and heard, instead of being inside that box and immersed in his own imagination. I find his writing very impersonal, and yet interesting.

Frank Herbert is the benchmark, the standard. As fantastic as the "Dune" series is, it's very realistic by the manner which he wrote. The words he chose, the sentences that they made, and the resulting paragraphs contain a subtle depiction of the politics, economics, religion, and environments that make the stories so believable it's as if he is writing of a time and of events that actually took place. His son and Kevin Anderson just don't match that ability. Their prequels come off as hokey and commericial.

Stephen King doesn't just get into the minds of his characters, he gets into their souls and exposes them for all to see. One can't write this way unless one confronts with abject honesty their own strengths and weaknesses. King exposes the very way we think and see ourselves with his stream-of-thought style. That makes his characters as real as you and me. Any fledgling author would be wise to make use of this absolute honest approach to character building.

Matthew Stover blew me away with "Shatter Point", and because he was commissioned to write "Revenge of the Sith" I must add that to my library. It was refreshing to read a Star Wars novel that was character driven and not action driven. There is plenty of action in it, but without the in-depth understanding of characters, it would have been another boring Tim Zahn charade. Stover writes as if he is not afraid to take on established characters and develop them further.

Ayn Rand is another powerful character creator. I like "We the Living", more than her others because its not bogged down in her own philosophy. It's much more powerful because it has roots in her own experiences during the Bolshevic Revolution. Her other famous novels have interesting characters as well, but the worlds she drops them into are extreme and unrealistic, but neccesary to carry the message of her ideology.

So, in my opinon, the best stories are those which are told through the eyes and minds of its characters be it 1st or 3rd person. You don't want what you write to read as a narrator that is reporting events that he has no interest in, or concern about. Figure out your universe, figure out your characters, and then figure out how that universe effects those characters. Write from that stance.

[Crusader]

Hey Cargile,

Started writing in 1990 [although that doesn't been I'm a great writer] but you're right about it reading like a manual. This was initially a series of ships log entries for this universe that I created. I thought of using those existing snippets to create this project and tried to string them along into one story. The main character is only introduced in chapter 3.

I realised in order to convert this into a proper story would take a lot more detail and transition between snippets/log entries from the different characters which I'll have to figure out somehow.

I think my main focus was on the accompanying illustration images which I had to design to fit with the story.

Perhaps I should make the prologue and the first two chapters part of the prologue and only start chapter 1 with Major Mark Roland, who will be the main character?

In general though, I do tend to focus more on action events, keeping the action fast an furious which becomes repetitive and confusing. That's usually how I start out writing the story and then when I re-read it, I add interludes and background bits to build a more balance story line. This is actually the reason why I got stuck on my main scifi story I was busy with before I started this SISS idea.

What I'd like to do with SISS is have a short-summarised version as seen on the webpage as an illustration of the project and the CG images and then actually develop a more coherent and detailed story with character building and description in.

[p.s. Cargile]

Sounds like you have quite a project on your hands. :up:

[Crusader]

It is, and it needs a lot of work so all the comments and suggestions to make it better is welcome. I'll definately spend more time on the characters to personalise the narative and take the manual/formality out of it.

[p.s. Cargile]

I'm taking another gander at from the bais of your "ship logs". I've noticed something with the first few paragraphs of the prologue. Reread it yourself, but do so in the first person.

It changes the whole thing. What do you think?

[Crusader]

Did re-read it, not sure what I should spot, but then, I'm biased... would you like to elaborate?

[p.s. Cargile]

It's written in third person, but when I read it in first person (replacing the "he"s with "I"s and such) it matched the cadence of your writing. Those paragraphs are already written flow-of-thought so changing the perspective would nail it. When I read it that way I could hear the guy talking about these things, like his voice is recorded for log entries.

[Crusader]

Ahhh, yes, did realise that but wasn't sure if that was what you refered to..

Would actually make sense to write in in the 1st person since it is a 'ships log' type... but then I should keep it that way right through for consistancy, hey...

[p.s. Cargile]

not neccesarily. I think its ok to mix. It depends on what the story needs.

[Crusader]

hmmm, makes sense, specific accounts in the first person as logs, then commentator/3rd person perspective for overviews to tie in the different logs...

I think that by the time I get to Act 2, Scene 2 with the Major, it is a more, present time, 1st person perspective where we join him on his mission.

Eitherway still need some work...